This topic describes the release notes for Elastic Container Instance since 2023 and provides links to the relevant references.
December 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Support for economic instances | If you specify the number of vCPUs and memory size to create an elastic container instance and the number of vCPUs of the instance is between 0.25 and 8, you can further set the computing power type to economy to reduce the use cost of the instance. | 2023-12-29 | Set the computing power type to economy when you create an elastic container instance | Set the computing power type to economy when you create pods |
Ignored NotReady state of the sidecar container | If you use a sidecar container to implement an effect that is similar to the effect of DaemonSets and the status of the sidecar container is NotReady, the status of the pod is NotReady. In specific scenarios, if you do not want the status of the sidecar container to affect the status of the entire pod, you can use environment variables to ignore the status of the sidecar container. | 2023-12-29 | N/A | |
Creation of pods after Cluster IP address synchronization | In a Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) cluster, Elastic Container Instance-based pods and the component that synchronizes Services are started and run in parallel. If the cluster contains a large number of Services and Service endpoints, the access to the pods may time out because the cluster IP address is not synchronized among the Services. To resolve this issue, Elastic Container Instance allows the system not to create a pod until the cluster IP address is synchronized among Services. This ensures that containers in the pod can access Services. | 2023-12-29 | N/A | |
Additional specifications for elastic container instances | If you create elastic container instances by specifying the number of vCPUs and memory size, you can select specifications including 2 to 8 vCPUs and memory sizes with a small step size for some regions. | 2023-12-27 | Specify the number of vCPUs and memory size to create an elastic container instance |
November 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Force termination of the sidecar container and ignored container exit code | If you use a sidecar container to implement an effect that is similar to the effect of DaemonSets, a job-type pod may not be able to complete running. In this case, you can configure environment variables to specify the type of the sidecar container and ignore the exit code of the sidecar container. This ensures that the job-type pod can complete running as expected. | 2023-11-30 | N/A | Forcibly terminate the sidecar container and ignore the container exit code |
October 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Support for the ecs.gn7s instance family | The ecs.gn7s instance family is supported if you specify Elastic Compute Service (ECS) GPU-accelerated instance types to create GPU-accelerated elastic container instances. | 2023-10-17 | Specify GPU-accelerated ECS instance types to create an elastic container instance | |
Encryption of temporary storage space | Elastic Container Instance allows you to encrypt the temporary storage space of an elastic container instance to protect sensitive image or business data or to comply with regulations. This way, your data stays secure and intact against unauthorized access or leakage. | 2023-10-16 | N/A |
September 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Support for specific ECS instance types | Specific ECS instance types, such as GPU-accelerated ECS instances types and ECS instance types that provide high clock speeds, are supported. You can select these instance types when you create elastic container instances in the Elastic Container Instance console and your business requires special specifications. | 2023-09-13 | Support for specific Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance types | N/A |
August 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Configuration of the startup and exit priorities of containers | Environmental variables can be added to containers in elastic container instances to ensure that the containers start or exit in sequence. | 2023-08-22 | ||
Support for DataCaches | DataCaches can be created for a large amount of business data, such as model training data. When you create an elastic container instance, you can mount and use the DataCaches to reduce the startup time of the instance, prevent repeated data downloads, and reduce the costs of using the instance. | 2023-08-21 | ||
Inclusion or exclusion of the ecs.u1 instance family in the filtering of ECS instance families and filtering of generations of ECS instance families | The ecs.u1 instance family can be specified or excluded when you create Elastic Container Instance-based pods by specifying or excluding ECS instance families or generations of ECS instance families. | 2023-08-18 | N/A | |
Support for private IP addresses | A private IP address can be specified when you create an elastic container instance. | 2023-08-14 | Specify a private IP address for an elastic container instance | |
Modification of the vm.min_free_kbytes parameter | The vm.min_free_kbytes parameter can be modified when you modify sysctl parameters by configuring a security context. Note We recommend that you specify a value for vm.min_free_kbytes that is not greater than 20% of the total memory size. | 2023-08-10 | Configure a security context for an elastic container instance or a container | |
Use of CloudMonitor to monitor elastic container instances | CloudMonitor can be used to monitor elastic container instances. The following metrics are supported:
| 2023-08-04 | ||
Cross-zone distribution of Elastic Container Instance-based pods and configuration of affinities | In ACK Pro clusters or ACK Serverless Pro clusters, Elastic Container Instance-based pods can be distributed across zones based on Kubernetes native scheduling semantics to ensure the high availability of the pods. In addition, affinities can be configured to deploy pods in specific zones based on Kubernetes native scheduling semantics to ensure the high performance of the pods. | 2023-08-03 | N/A | Spread Elastic Container Instance-based pods across zones and configure affinities |
July 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Image pulling from Container Registry instances across Alibaba Cloud accounts without using a Secret | If a Container Registry instance and the elastic container instance that you want to create do not belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account, Resource Access Management (RAM) users can be used to pull images from the Container Registry instance without using a Secret. | 2023-07-19 | Pull images from a Container Registry instance without using a secret | Pull images from a Container Registry instance without using a secret |
Refined collection of stdout logs | The following values are supported for the collection path of stdout logs:
| 2023-07-18 | ||
Modification of the net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range parameter | The net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range parameter can be modified when you modify sysctl parameters by configuring a security context. | 2023-07-04 | Configure a security context for an elastic container instance or a container |
June 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Support for the specification of GPU driver versions | In some scenarios, you may need to use different driver and CUDA versions for different GPU-accelerated elastic container instances. In this case, you can add annotations to specify the driver and CUDA versions. | 2023-06-30 | N/A | |
Support for the ecs.u1 instance family | The ecs.u1 instance family can be used when you create elastic container instances by specifying ECS instance types. | 2023-06-20 | Specify ECS instance types to create an elastic container instance | |
Configuration of fixed IP addresses | A fixed IP address can be configured to create an elastic container instance. After the instance is released, the system retains the fixed IP address. If you create an elastic container instance that meets specific conditions during the validity period (48 hours by default), the system assigns the retained IP address to the instance. | 2023-06-09 | Configure an elastic container instance to use a fixed IP address | Configure an Elastic Container Instance-based pod to use a fixed IP address |
Support for multiple security groups | Multiple security groups can be specified by using the
| 2023-06-05 | N/A |
May 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Support for elasticity assurances | Elasticity assurances are supported to provide guaranteed access to resources that you can use to create pay-as-you-go elastic container instances. For example, you must use a specific number of pods of a specific ECS instance type for a period of time. In this case, we recommend that you purchase an elasticity assurance to obtain reserved resources. This prevents instance creation failures due to insufficient resources and negative impacts on your business. | 2023-05-17 | N/A | Use the private pool of an elasticity assurance to create pods |
Additional vCPU and memory specifications | The following specifications are added:
| 2023-05-11 | Specify the number of vCPUs and memory size to create an elastic container instance | |
Automatic creation of pay-as-you-go elastic container instances | The | 2023-05-09 | N/A |
March 2023
Feature | Description | Release date | References (Elastic Container Instance console and API) | References (Kubernetes) |
Support for clusterDNS, clusterDomain, and customResources in VNodectl | customResources, clusterDNS, and clusterDomain can be configured by using parameters when you create or update VNodes. | 2023-03-28 | N/A | This feature is applicable only to self-managed Kubernetes clusters. For more information, see Common commands for VNodectl. |
Filtering of specific ECS instance families | When you create an Elastic Container Instance-based pod by specifying the number of vCPUs and memory size, the system uses a variety of ECS instance types to support the creation and automatically selects the instance types that meet the vCPUs and memory requirements and have sufficient resources. The | 2023-03-07 | N/A | Specify or exclude specific ECS instance families to create a pod |
Filtering of specific generations of ECS instance families | When you create an Elastic Container Instance-based pod by specifying the number of vCPUs and memory size, the system uses a variety of ECS instance types to support the creation and automatically selects the instance types that meet the vCPUs and memory requirements and have sufficient resources. The | 2023-03-07 | N/A | Specify or exclude specific generations of ECS instance families to create a pod |
Configuration of custom hosts | In some scenarios, you may need to configure hosts for an Elastic Container Instance pod. For example, when you pull an image from a self-managed image repository, you must specify the actual IP address of the image repository by using the hosts file. The | 2023-03-03 | N/A | |
Support for Arm-based instances | Arm-based ECS instance types can be specified to create Arm-based elastic container instances. Arm-based ECS instance types is based on the Arm architecture. Each vCPU corresponds to a physical core of a processor. The Arm architecture delivers stable performance by using dedicated resources. | 2023-03-03 |